President of Central Conference of American Rabbis Decries Division in U.S. Jewish Life

Declaring that “there is hardly a great American Jewish effort which is not bitterly divided in these tense days,” Dr. Solomon B. Freehof, president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, today told the opening session of the CCAR’s 56th annual convention that unity in American Jewish life is necessary in order to meet the needs of the ravaged Jewish communities in Europe.

Dr. Freehof reported that 25 percent of the CCAR’s members are in the armed forces as chaplains, comprising about half of the Jewish section of the chaplains corps. Discussing the Synagogue Council, which embraces all rabbinical and congregational groups, Rabbi Freehof expressed concern that “it seems on the point of departing from its original purpose (securing cooperation among various Jewish groups) and is paralelling and overlapping its member organizations.”